Part 2: Turning points in tarot history
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Place, Robert M. The Tarot: History Symbolism and Divination. ISBN: 1-58542-349-1
Summary
1781: Antoine Court comes across the card deck at a party. He and the other guests make up nonsense about the symbolism being from ancient Egypt.
Early 1900s: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn layers on western esoteric themes.
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Place, Robert M. The Tarot: History Symbolism and Divination. ISBN: 1-58542-349-1
Summary
1770: Jean-Baptiste Alliette, the ‘first professional tarot reader’, going by the pseudonym ‘Etteilla’, publishes a book on divination with cards. He provides instructions for card spreads, and includes keywords for assigned card meanings.
1785: Etteilla publishes a book specifically on tarot card reading.
1791: Etteilla redesigns the tarot, adding hermetic and astrological elements.
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Place, Robert M. The Tarot: History Symbolism and Divination. ISBN: 1-58542-349-1
Summary
1791: Etteilla publishes a dictionary of tarot card meanings
1800s: French occultists create decks and writings inspired by Etteilla
1856: Eliphas Levi assigns each tarot trump a Hebrew letter and all 78 cards to a position on the Tree of Life. He also folds in alchemical meanings
1861: Kenneth McKenzie, an English occultist, inspired by Levi, writes the Cipher Manuscripts, which will form the basis of the pracrtices of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
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Place, Robert M. The Tarot: History Symbolism and Divination. ISBN: 1-58542-349-1
Summary
1888: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is founded
1892: Tarot becomes incorporated into their practices, folding in even more correspondences for each card
1909: Members AE Waite and Pamela Colman Smith create their deck, the first to show an illustrated minor Arcana
